Professional course Knowledge Management

Content

This module will cover the following topic areas:

• Introduction to Information and Knowledge Management: Understanding data, information and knowledge; objectivist and constructivist perspectives of knowledge; distinctions between data management, information management and knowledge management in organisations. Understanding the roles of the records manager and knowledge specialist.
• Managing Data: Data management principles; Data lifecycle; role of the Data Analyst; data security.
• Managing Information 1,2,3: Best practice and the legal environment; risk and information governance; information audits and policies; digital preservation.
• Knowledge Sharing 1 & 2: Collaborative working in the organisation - people and practices; collaborative working in the organisation - IT tools and techniques. Communities of practice; Nonaka and Takeuchi's knowledge spiral; single and double loop learning; role of social media. Enabling cultures and barriers.
• Knowledge Societies: Exploring role of information and knowledge for sustainable development worldwide.
• Organisational culture and learning: Different categories of knowledge, e.g. tacit and explicit; propositional, practical, experiential; knowledge in action; knowing as culturally situated, artefact mediated, socially distributed, personal and provisional. Organisational knowledge and learning: individual, social and critical perspectives.
• Developing the learning organisation: Senge's model including fifth discipline; features of learning organisation; research case studies of learning organisations and top UK and global companies.
• Personal Knowledge Management: Understanding the role of the personal in the organisational setting; seek, sense, share model (Jarche); role of social media in PKM.

Learning and Teaching

Scheduled learning is via weekly lectures, including discussions and exercises/case studies in class.

The teaching material is available from Blackboard (our online learning environment).

Study time

This module (course) will involve 2 hours direct contact time per week for one semester.

A 15 credit module, like this, is expected to take 150 hours to complete:

• 24 hrs lectures and face to face discussion
• 30 hrs online learning via VLE teaching materials and online discussion groups/contributions to wikis etc.
• 66 hrs independent learning via essential reading
• 30 hours assignment preparation and completion.

Assessment

Assessment consists of a short answer exam, a professional standard report and an investigation into a knowledge sharing tool of choice.

For more details, see our full glossary of assessment terms.